Deputy Clerk Questions Alterations to Kentucky Marriage Licenses

A deputy clerk in Rowan County, Ky., raised questions on Friday about whether a slapdash solution to a legal standoff about same-sex marriage licenses complied with the order of the federal judge who this month jailed the county’s clerk, Kim Davis.

The deputy clerk, Brian Mason, disclosed his concerns to a federal judge in a three-page filing in which his lawyer, Richard A. Hughes, wrote that he believed that changes to marriage license forms in Rowan County this week “were made in some attempt to circumvent the court’s orders and may have raised to the level of interference against the court’s orders.”

The filing could help prod Judge David L. Bunning of Federal District Court to decide whether the changes ordered by Ms. Davis comply with his order that she not interfere with the licensing process.

Ms. Davis, who was held in contempt of court and jailed this month after she defied an August order from Judge Bunning, said on Monday that any licenses handed out by her office would not carry her authorization. Ms. Davis’s fix involved altering the marriage license paperwork to remove, among other items, her name. Instead, the licenses say they are issued, “Pursuant to Federal Court Order.”

Mr. Mason issued at least one license under the modified procedure, but Mr. Hughes said the deputy clerk had become concerned that there may be “some substantial questions about validity” of altered licenses.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has signaled that it might challenge Ms. Davis’s plan, said in a footnote to a different court filing on Friday that the “alterations call into question the validity of the marriage licenses issued, create an unconstitutional two-tier system of marriage licenses issued in Kentucky and do not comply with this court’s September 3 order prohibiting Davis from interfering with the issuance of marriage licenses.”

A lawyer for Ms. Davis, Mathew D. Staver, wrote in an email that “the licenses were not altered to circumvent the court’s order, nor did Kim Davis circumvent the order.”

Gov. Steven L. Beshear has said he believes the modified licenses are valid under state law.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Altered Forms Questioned in Kentucky. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe